Patriot-News Special Report: 1998 Jerry Sandusky investigator would have pursued dropped case if he had seen hidden Penn State police report

JOE HERMITT, The Patriot-NewsJerry Sandusky outside of the Centre County courthouse following a hearing. JOE HERMITT, The Patriot-News

The state Department of Public Welfare investigator who closed a child sexual abuse investigation against Jerry Sandusky in 1998 said he likely would not have closed it had he seen reports from two psychologists who interviewed the young accuser.

"The course of history could have been changed,” Lauro said.

Jerry Lauro, brought in to investigate the child abuse claims against Sandusky, said Wednesday that Penn State police never shared those conflicting reports with him before he closed the case. Lauro said he closed the case because he did not believe there was enough evidence based solely on interviews.

Penn State “Detective [Ron] Schreffler never shared any of these with me,” Lauro said, referring to reports from psychologist John Seasock and a female psychologist. Seasock concluded that the boy was not sexually abused two days before the case was closed. The report of the female psychologist who evaluated the boy right after the incident found Sandusky was exhibiting signs of grooming a victim for sexual abuse.

“The conclusions she had drawn in her report were pretty damaging,” Lauro said. “I would have made a different decision. ... It’s unbelievable, and it gets my blood pressure going when I think about it.”

Schreffler, when reached by phone, declined comment. “My report speaks for itself,” he said before hanging up.

Information about the two psychological reports surfaced last week when Sandusky's attorney, Joe Amendola, made a formal request for copies of them in preparation for trial. Judge John Cleland ruled that Amendola can read them but can't use them in court without getting his permission.

Gricar’s role has become the subject of much fodder and conjecture for two reasons: The case is the only other known time that police knew of allegations against Sandusky. And Gricar vanished in 2005. He was declared dead last summer but his case still stumps investigators, who say they have no evidence that his disappearance is linked to the Sandusky case.

When child abuse is reported, police and county Children and Youth Services typically conduct separate investigations. They work together but can have different conclusions.

In this case, since Centre County CYS worked closely with Sandusky’s charity, The Second Mile, Lauro was brought in from the state Department of Public Welfare to do the child abuse investigation.

Schreffler and Penn State police closed the criminal investigation at Gricar’s request. But Lauro still could have decided to pursue the case within child protective services.

That doesn’t mean Sandusky would have been charged. But it means the finding could have gone into the child abuse registry and The Second Mile might have been notified.

Lauro has said Schreffler also never told him the details of a meeting set up by police between Sandusky and the boy’s mother, in which police were listening secretly from another room. Prosecutors say Sandusky admitted to the mother that he touched her son and said, “I wish I were dead.”

“I remember my last conversation with [Schreffler] concerning him hiding in that room,” Lauro said last year. “He didn’t tell me details. All he said was, ‘There’s nothing to it — we’re going to close our case.’ And I said, ‘That’s fine, I’m going to close my case, too.’ “

The mother of Victim Six says that she had believed Seasock was a paid consultant for CYS when she took her son to see him.

The other psychologist, whom the mother had contacted as soon as her son came home and told her that Sandusky had forced him to take a shared shower, saw her son over a longer period of time, she said.

“And that psychologist concluded that this incident ... was a classic example of how a sexual abuser grooms his victim,” said a source who saw the report.

Note to readers: if you purchase something through one of our affiliate links we may earn a commission.